Funny money: the perils of printing T-bills

By selling Treasury bills to the PBOC and other central banks, the US has turned good money into bad. The effect on global currencies and economies has been enormous.

Currencies are seen by ordinary people as being subservient to the real issues of the economy wage levels, unemployment, productivity increases, income and consumption tax, imports versus exports, investment and so on. This is the stuff that makes eye-catching headlines. Much less so the columns of FX rates at the back of the newspaper.

However, with extraordinary strength in recent months, those same ordinary people must be starting to wonder if there is any such thing as the real economy....